Press Releases

John Roman, Of the Times Staff

05/09/2006

MEDIA -- For Raiven Craig, 15, a ninth-grader at Chester High School and member of its junior ROTC class, Monday’s premiere showing at the Media Theatre of a film honoring the legacy of the Tuskegee Airmen had a special meaning.

She and fellow student Melissa Diggs won an English essay contest in the school district for "Black Knights, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen."

Craig had the opportunity to meet some of the famed airmen in person Monday and hear of their hardships and experiences at the program sponsored by the Pennsylvania Veterans Museum attended by numerous students from schools in the county and Philadelphia, educators and elected officials.

In 1942, at the beginning of World War II, a small group of African-American soldiers was quietly assembled near rural Tuskegee, Ala., as part of a U.S. Army Air Corps experiment. They demonstrated exceptional courage while fighting a war against both the Axis powers in Europe and racism in the United States. They flew some 200 bomber-escort missions against some of the most heavily defended targets in the Third Reich -- without losing a single bomber to enemy fighters.

This later led to the integration of all U.S. armed forces in a resolution signed by President Harry S. Truman in 1947.

"I thought that it was very wonderful that we got to honor these men because they really came through racial discrimination ..the things that they had to go through to prove themselves," Craig said.

The film, "On Freedom’s Wings: Bound for Glory," should be shown to students around the world, she said.

"If you just keep your hopes and dreams alive, you can accomplish so many things like how these men did,"

Craig said.

The 37-minute film is part of a statewide educational program for grades 5-11 that enables students to learn about World War II from those who served, according to Mayor Bob McMahon, PVM executive secretary, and Joanna Murphy, PVM executive director.

After the film ended, McMahon introduced Capt. Luther H. Smith, USAF retired; Col. Charles E. McGee, USAF retired; and Lt. Col. Lee A. "Buddy" Archer Jr., USAF retired. All received a rousing applause from the packed audience.

Smith, 85, of Villanova, a retired General Electric Co. engineer, had flown 133 combat missions and was a prisoner of war for seven months after parachuting unconscious from his burning P-51 Mustang aircraft.

Smith said the film was a "great movie that will serve wonderfully well as an educational resource." He thanked McMahon for his efforts in pushing forward this film and educational curriculum and "..aking our experience a reality in the schools of America.

"Tuskegee Airmen have for years wanted what we did in combat 60 years ago as an educational curriculum for young people to be inspired by our experience and what we went through to help bring this nation to where it is today," Smith said.

He said Archer flew with him in combat on Smith’s final mission on Oct. 13, 1944. "Lee is the only black ace in U.S. Air Force history.. and destroyed five enemy aircraft in combat in World War II, Smith said, despite prejudice that the rest of them"..couldn’t shoot straight."

Archer of New Rochelle, N.Y., remains the only confirmed ace of the unprecedented group of black pilots.

McGee, of Bethesda, Md., not only flew in World War II, but also in the Korean War and Vietnam, amassing 409 total combat missions, the highest number of three-war missions flown by any Air Force aviator in history, Smith said.

U.S. Reps. Curt Weldon, R-7, of Thornbury, and Bob Brady, D-1, of Philadelphia, both said they were proud to be in the presence of the legendary pioneer group of aviators in World War II who fought not only the enemy, but racial discrimination.

"These great men didn’t go through life complaining," Weldon said. "They decided they were going to make a difference, that they were going to do extraordinary things even though everything was against them.

"The government was against them," he said. "The military was against them. Their communities were against them. But they had a bigger vision. They wanted to really do something to allow our country to live up to the ideals that our Constitution promised them when they were born here."

There’s no better example of what America’s all about than the Tuskegee Airmen, Weldon said.

"But these individuals gave us all a lesson,a lesson in what this nation really means, a lesson all of us can learn from," he said.

©DelcoTimes 2006